Rice Stuffed Tofu Pockets (Inari Sushi)

Inari sushi is made by filling a pouch of seasoned fried tofu (abura age) with sushi rice. It is named after the Shinto god, Inari, who is said to have had a fondness for tofu. Deep-fried tofu pouches became so popular in Japan that by the 1980s, 300,000 to 450,000 pouches were made every day and roughly 1/3 of the soybeans used for tofu were used for the deep fried pouches.

These tofu pockets are a portable, healthy, everyday vegetarian dish. You can dress these up any way you wish, as this is just the most basic recipe to make inari. Some of the most common inari stuffings include steamed vegetables with rice and furikake, radish, and rice.

These are traditionally Japanese, but they were also very popular in Korea because of the long 19th-century colonization of Korea by the Japanese.